A Great New Discovery

Friday, July 21, 2017
Sunny with Blue Skies
28 C  83 F

A Great New Discovery

   I received an e-mail about 6 weeks ago. It was from Mr. Greg Hickey, who had this wonderful  toy that was an electromagnet steam shovel iron mover. In place of the normal scoop or shovel, there was an electromagnetic for attaching iron  to be moved by the steam shovel. It was a great new discovery, and the name of the manufacturer was  the A.C.Redmond Company, in  Flint, Michigan (USA).  

 In Greg's Own Words:

Stacey , hope these pictures are better for you to use. If you need more or different parts shot will be glad to try. I bought the crane in a antique store in St Louis Mo. I had never heard of the company , so I thought I would take a chance was purchased in 2011. I don't think the wiring is original, I also question the tube that would have held what looks like D batteries. The line that raises and lowers the magnet looks original. The measurements I took are , swing deck "bottom of the cab" 7 1/2 inches wide , length is 12 1/4 to 12 1/2 inches , hard to measure back end has a curve out, point of boom 16 inches, length of boom 18 inches . The crawler frame is 4 7/8 inches x 9 inches long . The roof is 13 inches long  7 1/2 inches wide measuring straight across the bottom of roof. Length of the house is 11 1/2 inches width 6 1/2 inches , the side of house is close to 5 1/2 inches. The magnet is 2 3/4 inches. The wheels are 2 inch high  by 1 1/2 wide. I'm going to send pictures in a separate file . You can use ,edit pictures however you need to . 

Thank  You, Greg

Greg does not know much about this toy, so I naturally asked him to send me photos in order to perhaps have someone provide more information about this magnificent toy.  For those who might not know, Flint, Michigan  is a city famous for manufacturing cars in the USA by the 3 major American manufacturers.

Greg is quite ingenious. He took 3 size D batteries and taped them together, 

along with the positive and negative wire terminals.

 When Greg turned on the On/Off switch, lo and behold, the 

electromagnetic of the A.C.Redmond toy, the magnet worked perfectly,

even atyer all those years!

I congratulated Greg on his excellent photography. The photographs illustrate all of the different sides of the toy, as well as the boom and the electromagnetic magnet. Hopefully, this being a somewhat old toy from I would guess the 1940's-1950's or even earlier, someone out there who reads my blog will be able to help us out.

So if someone has the same toy out there, and knows more about the A.C.Redmond Company, would you please write to me,so that we can give readers more information about this newfound toy company.

Sometimes, I receive e-mails from readers who give me assistance or have questions to ask. I received the information about the AG Redmond Company a week after I had posted this post:

"It appears there were two companies with the name Redmond. The AG Redmond Co. started in 1925 and built car parts and small electric motors. This maybe the only toy they produced. The patent is dated 1933 and this toys label say patent applied for so it is pre 1933. Overall a very nice toy and likely a rare one."*

* Derrick Clow

Thanks for dropping by,

And as always,

Have a great day or night,

Wherever you may be.

Stacey Bindman

Toysearcher@gmail.com

The Ives, Blakeslee & Williams Company

Monday, July 17, 2017
Overcast with rain forecast
20 C  68 F

The Ives, Blakeslee

& Williams Company

   A reader wrote to me last week asking if I had more scanned photos of an Ives, Blakeslee & Williams Company catalogue. He had visited my blog, and had found 3 posts on the company . I had written 3 posts about the American toy distributor company on September 30, 2016. I hadn't scanned the catalogue, but for a selection of images from the catalogue. The catalogue that I have is a June 1965 reprint of the Original 1893 catalogue ( 124 years ago).

  I didn't have the entire catalogue scanned, so I decided to scan it. I then contacted the reader to say that I scanned the entire catalogue, and if he wanted the catalogue, I'd send him a DVD with  all of the pages. All he had to do is send me his address. The reader had just started to collect mechanical toys, and was interested in further becoming more knowledgeable about old toys.

  The catalogue is a cornucopia of all kinds of toys and playthings that would have been around in the 1890's. Most, if not all of the toys are "hand-on" toys that would be played with indoors or outdoors.  THere are other interesting toys that I did not include in the 10 photos that I selected. There were model steam engines, fireworks, batteries, cameras,toy steam engine attachments, and fireworks. What's interesting is that there are no warnings in the catalogue to warn children and their parents to be careful when playing with these toys. Steam engines produce scalding steam heat, and fireworks, of course could be explosive and dangerous. Perhaps there were written instructions and cautionary notes included with the toys.

  What especially interesting to not  are the p[rices of these wholesale toys. The  mechanical locomotives below are sold by the dozen for the piece of $ 24.00 (U.S.) for 12\, while the Montauk toy guns are sold for $ 9.00 (U.S.) per gross (144 pieces).

    So that's it for this overcast and potential raining day of July 17, 2017. This spring and Summer have not been the best of seasons. We've has lots of cloudy and rainy days here in Montreal. I have a small piece of land that I rent out from my city, and I grow vegetables. I hardly have to visit it, because of the  amount of rain that has fallen. Of course, I shouldn't complain. On the west coast of Canada, in the province of British Columbia, the weather has been sunny and hot, and dry! As a consequence, there have been major forest fires, and evacuations of cities to protect the people. I hope the weather will improve for August and September, but we can only hope.

Thanks for dropping by,

And as always,

Have a great part of the day or night,

Wherever you may be.

Stacey Bindman

Toysearcher@gmail.com

Can you Identify These Toy Soldiers?

Monday, July 10, 2017
Cloudy with Sun
23C  74 F

Can You Identify 

These Toy Soldiers?

   I always like to receive e-mail from readers. The main reason is that I know people are reading my blog. The second reason is that it keeps me busy, in being able to write an interesting new post.

I  received an e-mail 2 weeks ago, and today, I received photos for toy soldiers that I do not know about. Mr. William Hones sent me these nice photos of his toy soldiers and asked me if I knew who made them. I'm not very knowledgeable about toy soldiers, but I do know that lots of people collect and enjoy them. There are British and AMerican-made toy soldiers, although you can in fact find toy soldiers made all over the world.  So if someone knows who manufactured these soldiers, would you please send me an e-mail, and I'll inform William as to their manufacturer's identity.

So that's it for today, and I do hope that someone out there will be 

able to identify these wonderful toy soldiers.

Thanks for dropping by,

And as always,

Have a great part of the day or night,

Wherever you may be.

Stacey Bindman

Toysearcher@gmail.com

Bertoia Auctions Find of a Rare Mechanical Bank

July 1, 2017

Overcast and Raining

23 C  74 F

Bertoia Auctions Find of 

a Rare Mechnical Bank

Description

J. & E. Stevens Co., c 1880's, made of cast iron with a painted lead goat on top, by placing a coin on the goat's tail and turning the faucet, this allows figure to deposit coin and seemingly present the depositor with a stein of beer, very attractive in scarcer painted barrel scheme colours and a very strong conditioned goat. Tip of one horn reattached, tin trap replaced, otherwise all original in (Excellent  Condition) as found in a Virginia attic.

Well, this mechanical bank is certainly rarer and interesting.

The final bidding price was estimated between $ 15,000 - $ 25,000 US.

The final price was $ 51,000 - Wow!

Thanks for dropping by,

And as always,

Have a great part of the day or night,

Wherever you may be.

Stacey Bindman

Toysearcher@gmail.com